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He
bashed Barack Obama in Los Angeles over the weekend, fills in
for The Donald today in the Big Apple and, on Saturday, Gov.
Rick Perry will hit New Orleans for a GOP
event that looks a lot like a cattle call for White House
hopefuls.

There’s also this: a brand new online ad,
now running in first-test New Hampshire, touting the Texas
governor’s efforts to whip up on Texas trial lawyers.

It’s produced by Americans for Job Security, which has close ties
to Perry strategist Dave Carney—one of several top staffers to
bolt Newt Gingrich's hobbled presidential campaign last week.

The ads were prominently displayed Monday on the front page of
the New Hampshire Union Leader's online edition.

If Perry was dipping his toes into the water of a presidential
bid as the month of May wound down, this week he’s up to his
ankles.

“He’s doing all the things you’d do to have the option open,”
said Matthew Dowd, the onetime chief strategist for George W.
Bush. “I think he’s just seeing the response he’ll get. He’s
definitely on a different trajectory than he was a month ago.”
(Dowd wrote
in January, a lifetime ago in politics, that Perry had a good
shot at winning the 2012 GOP presidential nomination).

In Los Angeles, Perry
unveiled new speech material—more designed for a national
audience than his standard state talking points — when he took on
Obama directly over abortion rights. Perry urged the mostly
Hispanic crowd, gathered for a bilingual anti-abortion event, to
fight against Roe v. Wade until the watershed case legalizing
abortion becomes “a shameful footnote in our nation's history
books.”

Perry didn't take any questions from the media afterward.

The trip to New York is being met with more anticipation in a
week that’s chock full of it. The Texas governor will headline
the Lincoln
Day Dinner put on by the Republican Party of Manhattan
(technically known as the New York Republican County Committee).
Conservative media personality Ann Coulter will also speak at the
event. It’s the New York party’s biggest annual fundraiser — and
officials say it's the most prominent GOP event held each year in
a city ruled by Democrats. Past keynote speakers have included
former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and former California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Organizers say there's high interest in the Perry speech, which
is being fueled in part by the perception that the
longest-serving U.S. governor might enter a GOP field that many
observers view as weak and unsettled. Local officials scrambled
to get Perry on the program after Donald Trump, who decided to
drop
a presidential bid, pulled out of the fundraiser, officials said.

“We are getting phone calls left and right,” said Daniel Isaacs,
chairman of the Manhattan GOP. “I can’t recall the last time
we’ve had this much excitement about a speaker coming in.”
Organizers are expecting up to 300 people to attend the
$1,000-a-head fundraiser, which is being held tonight at the
Grand Hyatt near Grand Central Station in New York City.

Perry will also squeeze in a few media appearances — on Fox News,
among others — while visiting New York.

After the speech, Perry will make a stop in North Carolina for a
meeting of the Republican Governors Association, an organization
that he chairs. Then, on Saturday, he’s off to the Big Easy,
where he's speaking to the Republican Leadership Conference,
the group formerly known as the Southern Republican Leadership
Conference.

Perry made a big splash at that event
last year, when speculation about the Texas governor making a
White House bid was already under way — despite all of his
denials.

A photo of Perry signing books is the first image that appears
when viewers click on the website for that event. Others expected
to attend the June 16-19 conference in New Orleans include a
variety of declared and possible Republican presidential
candidates, among them U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas; former House Speaker Gingrich;
former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; Georgia businessman Herman
Cain; U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint,
R-S.C.; and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Perry is staying out of the direct fray for now. His spokesman,
Mark Miner, said he would not be participating in the straw poll
put on by the conference.